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that-ari-blogger · 2 months

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Can't Argue With Crazy (Hollow Mind)

I’m going to open this with a question to Dana Terrace herself: Why? Did you wake up one morning, look at your audience, and think “I will break you”? What happened to the goofy series with the body swap episode and the playground game of thrones?

In all seriousness, I have been mentioning a lot that the Owl House features a runup to its final arc to get its mind into gear and fine tune the tone and pacing. In my opinion, that final arc kicks off in a big way with Hollow Mind.

Let me explain.

SPOILERS AHEAD: (The Owl House, Frankenstein, Moon Knight, Bladerunner)

In 1818, a book called The Modern Promethius was written. It’s one of those books that people like to say they’ve read and is a founding piece of science fiction, arguably the first book in that genre.

This is a practice called obfuscation. I was being honest with you here, but there’s some key information that I am leaving out, and it will change how you understand this post. At the moment, there’s a chance that you think I am cleverer than I am, as I have read a book you have never heard of and statistically, obscure fiction leads to a higher level of intelligence.

Alternatively, if you have heard of this book (Or looked at the spoiler warning), you know exactly where I’m going with this.

In this case, the missing information was the book’s author, and it’s full title: Mary Shelly, and Frankenstein; Or The Modern Promethius, alternatively known simply as Frankenstein.

However, I’ve already employed a few more deceptive techniques, and I’m interested in seeing who caught them.

First up, obscure fiction doesn’t actually lead to a higher level of intelligence. I’ve twisted that statistic a little. The link between reading in general and intellect is well established, but there is extremely little evidence for the obscurity having any effect on that. There is, however, a link to perceptions of intelligence, which I drew upon to base my claim.

This is an advanced technique known as lying. But it’s also social engineering, or more specifically pretexting. If I establish something that makes me seem more intelligent, a reader is more likely to believe me when I start espousing facts. I can then use this to talk bollocks to my heart’s content.

Notably, one side effect of this opening statement is that, depending on who you are, it either made you more likely to trust my opinions or more sceptical of me. I have artificially made myself seem more honest in comparison to a nebulous statement. But I have also pulled the rug out from under you, and that’s not a trust that can be built up as easily as it was eroded. Remember this.

In Moon Knight, a key reveal of the series is that Steven was not the real person. That he was the alter ego, made up and kept in the dark. It’s a harrowing reveal, and it plays with perception of reality in what I think is an interesting way.

Steven assumes that his reality is the truth because why would he think otherwise. I challenge you to find someone who doesn’t share this bias. You assume you are just like everyone else until proven otherwise. Just like you assume the sun will rise tomorrow and be roughly the same size and shape because nothing has given you reason to suspect otherwise.

This is Occam’s Razor, a tool that essentially declares the simplest answer to be the correct one. In this case, it is simpler to expect yourself to be a standard issue human being than a manufactured split personality of someone else. Or, that your memories aren’t manufactured and that you are the original personality.

It is also a bias founded in reality. Here, things usually repeat unless force acts upon them or they are instable by nature. This is how the science works, and since that is the study of reality, I defer to it in matters of real-world happenings.

In the case of the sun rising tomorrow. The sun has risen every day of a millennia, the likelihood of a force suddenly manifesting to change that is so infinitesimal that it isn’t worth dwelling upon. Even then, there are very few things that can affect the rising of the sun, and most of them we would know about in advance.

In short, you can expect reality to continue as it always has. There are rules to the world, and the world tends to play fair.

Linking to my point about Moon Knight, this can be manipulated through obfuscation. If you take away important information, a person will assume that they have the whole picture and act accordingly. Again, Steven assumes that he is the same as everyone else, and the audience of the series assumes the same thing. They have also not been given all the information. Even when the split is revealed, you are primed to think of the perspective character as the originator because why would you think otherwise.

Worth commenting on, is that the final scene of the series introduces a third personality, and this doesn’t come across as nearly as surprising, because we have been primed to expect a twist just like this. It’s the same thing happening again, just in a different way.

If we cycle back a little bit, did you catch how I referred to Steven as I started this section? I described him as not a real person, and I’d like to reverse that claim.

The following statement is not up for debate, you may disagree with anything else, but this is ironclad: Personhood is not anybody’s to ascribe or take away. You cannot declare that someone is not a person because you dislike them. You cannot refuse to accept someone's personhood because you believe them to be bellow you. Personhood is immutable, and everyone has the right to it, no matter how different from you, no matter how evil you find them to be. I am not willing to argue this point.

What this means has provoked a decent amount of speculation from philosophers and writers. Science fiction does this through its question of what is qualified to be a person. If you’ve read a story with a robot in it, you know what I’m talking about here.

However, if we substitute the terminology for a moment, we can notice that this is more widely used than you would expect.

The idea of a soul is often used synonymously with personhood. Basically, people have souls. Fantasy and mythology does this a fair bit, and its where the word “soulless” originates. A place with this adjective restricts agency and therefore expressions of individuality and personhood. An act that is soulless is one that forfeits personhood, used synonymously with “mindless”.

I would argue that anything with internal thoughts has a soul and therefore is a person, or vice versa. But I don’t think that’s the important question here.

I think the more important factor of this question is the faith of it. Not religiously, but in terms of a good or bad faith argument. In other words, why a person is making their case.

For example, the robot story archetype of “this group of individuals has claimed personhood, does that mean we have to give them rights?”

These stories rarely dispute the autonomy of the individuals, just the reaction to it. Therefore, in my opinion, the creation and intended purpose of the robots is irrelevant, they are people and should be treated as such. The story establishes that the robots can think, and that falls into my argument above.

Bladerunner adds onto this the idea that artificial life forms, or replicants, look exactly like humans, and explores how that affects the perception of them. The moment when Decker stands over the corpse of what looks like a human being and who has acted like a human being up to this point is sobering. But it also points to the fact that all it took to get people to be ok with not respecting the personhood of robots in the Star Wars franchise (who act just like humans), is the fact that they don’t look like us.

As a side note, I originally had to watch Bladerunner for school, and the prescribed version of it was the Director’s Cut. I only found the original version afterwards. So, if you despised the original because of how gratuitously redundant parts of it are, I would advise the other version. It quite literally gets rid of the bad things and explains the elements that felt unclear.

Specifically, it implies that Decker might be an artificial life form, which throws you for a loop entirely because it means that humans and replicants are functionally identical except for how they are created, and how long replicants are allowed to live for.

Humans will, however, always find a way to spot the difference, and in Bladerunner, that is through the eyes.

I haven’t watched the more recent film, so I don’t know if it’s been clarified. But the original doesn’t make it clear what the deal is with those eyes. Are they unique, somehow? Do they move in a weird way? We are only shown the reaction to the difference, not what that difference actually is, implying that the significance might be disproportionate to what is observed.

I ran this post by a few friends before posting it, as I usually do, and one of them commented that this is like being trans. To her, gender is like personhood, it has ideas attributed to it, but in reality, all you have to do is claim it and functionally speaking, it's yours to do with what you will.

She noted that the difference between a trans person and a cis person is disproportionate to the reaction to it. In all the ways that matters, a trans man is a man. But because a trans man was assigned female at birth, that means that people feel ok disallowing his masculinity.

She also highlighted the idea of bad faith arguments in this field eroding important discussions. The example she gave was how the transphobic cries of “what makes a woman?” undermine the fact that conversations about femininity and masculinity and how they are presented are important to have, especially because gender expression can take so many different forms.

People transition for a reason, and understanding what that is can help people in the future understand themselves, which at the very least has massive mental health benefits. But instead, the question is used to gatekeep something that isn’t anyone’s to gatekeep.

For context, I am not trans, I am nonbinary, so I cannot do justice to this idea beyond “this is what somebody who knows more than me told me”. I asked her if I could include what she said, and she said yes. But I still recommend checking out literally anyone else who has actually lived this experience.

I am actually rather tentative about this segment because of how little I know. But this is a blog about analysis, and leaving out the fact that there is a trans reading of a story feels disingenuous. Besides, I think it’s better to start discussion about important ideas than leave them absent from places they are relevant. If I’m wrong, please correct me and I will make adjustments. I always want to know more.

Speaking of trans readings, Hunter is first shown to the audience of The Owl House through his eyes.

The title sequence of the series’ second season features a wall of three figures looking menacing. Lilith, Kikimora, and the Golden Guard, then the scene is flipped. Lilith looks remorseful, Kikimora has lost the plot entirely, and the Golden Guard is… taking off his mask.

What strikes me about this is that this was revealed long before Hunter was shown off. The fans learned that this was a kid long before Luz did. There’s dramatic irony there, but also a display of theme.

The mask is a signifier of Hunter’s purpose. It was given to him by his father figure, along with the role of the Golden Guard. He doesn’t get any say in it at all. Similarly, he doesn’t get any agency when it comes to losing the identity. The mask falls off when Kikimora attacks him, the role gets taken from him by Darius later on. Hunter doesn’t get free will. He has been reduced to a role, a tool. He has had his personhood taken from him, and as I established, that act alone is enough to make Bellos the villain of Hunter’s story.

But the intro features Hunter taking off the mask willingly to reveal his face. In my mind, that links most closely to a scene in Hunting Palismen, when he removes his face covering to say:

“My name is Hunter.”

His name is treated the exact same way as his face, and in this case, he immediately puts the mask back on to face down Kikimora.

So, the two ideas are linked, the reveal of his name and what he is showing to the audience. Combine that with the fact that Kikimora’s and Lilith’s portraits both show their character development over the series, growing more insane and emotional respectively, the intro alone tells us that Hunter’s story will be about the removing of that mask and the learning of who he is.

Except, in this episode, the intro is cut short. The audience doesn’t see Hunter take off his mask, because now the script has been flipped. Not only does the audience learn who Hunter is, but so does Hunter.

“What a shame. Out of all the Grimwalkers, you looked most like him.”

The term “Grimwalker” is, as far as I can tell, original to The Owl House. But breaking down it’s etymology, it’s a fusion of two words. “Grim” and “walker”. Please hold your ghasps of surprise to the end of the post.

However, the word “grim” has connotations of gloom and seriousness. It’s not a nice word, essentially. Telling someone that they look grim is not a compliment.

It also has connotations of death, most likely linked to the Grim Reaper, and has become part of an overly edgy naming convention that has taken up root in certain parts of the internet and for a very specific group of TTRPG players. I challenge you to find two Shadow The Hedgehog fanfics out there that don’t have a character named “Grimsword” or “Axblade the Grim” or something similar.

This is not a criticism, it's an observation. I honestly find it quaint.

As such, a Grimwalker is someone who moves in death, a zombie, a wraith. A being created from the corpse of another. Alternatively, if we take it more metaphorically, a Grimwalker is a creature that exists as part of a deceased person’s legacy. Walking in the space they left behind.

Once again, however, the difference here is less important than how people respond to it. Because functionally speaking, Hunter is just like Luz and Amity. There’s a tiny difference in the way he casts magic but come on. He walks like a Human, bleeds like a Human, has mental breakdowns like a Human.

The fact that I could substitute out “Human” for “Witch” here makes my point even clearer. The benchmark doesn’t matter in the big scheme of things. They are all more similar than they are different.

For the record, Luz, Amity and Hunter, despite being different species of creature, are all people. They think, therefore they are. I refer you once again to my core argument above.

However, all it takes is that one detail for Bellos to deem these others unworthy of personhood. Although, the way he does it isn’t as pompous as he thinks it is.

Bellos is a megalomaniacal villain with a martyr complex. But his motivation is pathetically small. It never occurred to this man that these others could possibly be people. He didn’t have to decide that Witches or Grimwalkers were less valuable than him, because to him, they never even came close. He’s an eejit who cannot comprehend the world as anything other than a hierarchy with himself at the top, and he’s too scared to change his mind.

He's a witch hunter, someone who believes that personhood has to be earned, and to whom it does not occur that he is sacrificing anything when he kills Hunter. The child is just a tool he can throw away.

Which brings me all the way back to Mary Shelly, and Victor Frankenstein. Because the book isn’t titled “Adam”. It’s not about the created creature, it's about the chaotic narcissism of one human disaster. The book is very much about the monster, and that monster’s name is Victor Frankenstein.

I want to take a moment to point out how good Frankenstein is as a story. As in, classics have a reputation for being overly impressed with themselves. So, it’s worth noting that Frankenstein is a classic because of how enjoyable of a read it is.

There’s an almost tangible building dread where you can see the plot coming and the titular character won’t do anything about it because he isn’t aware that there are other people around him.

Like every story, it’s not for everyone, but in terms of craft, there’s some really good stuff going on in that book and I would highly recommend you give it a read for yourself.

But hold on, Frankenstein isn’t aware of the people around him? That’s eerily similar to Bellos. Even in the ways that operates.

The person whose had their face scratched out of every painting sure looks a lot like Hunter.

Frankenstein doesn’t care about people who want to know if he is ok. He uses Clerval like a butler, talks to his family when he needs them, and is ok with the death of an innocent person because it gets the blame for a crime he directly caused to go away. He views people as tools.

He also creates a creature with weirdly coloured eyes, and then bails despite having created life, because it’s not a perfect creation. He doesn’t stop to contemplate what the creature will do or think at all during the story.

When he is told that the creature will take away his love like he did to its would be wife, it doesn’t occur to Frankenstein to check on the woman he loves at all. People aren’t people to Frankenstein.

Bellos, uses people like tools, etc. etc. creates a person with weird eyes. He even named the creature after its purpose. “Hunter.” This creature hunts things for him, therefore that’s what he calls it.

People aren’t people to Bellos.

The justification he gives for righteousness is Hunter’s appearance. That’s why he was expecting him to last longer. Because he looked most like “him”. Aesthetics are more important to Bellos, which is hilarious because of how monstrous he himself looks.

Introspection is another thing that doesn’t come naturally to Phillip Whittebane.

“It hurts every time he chooses to betray me.”

“What did you do to the other guards? To our family? It wasn’t wild magic, was it?”

Luz and Bellos represent light and darkness, as the series plays with that concept and duality. But instead of good and evil because heaven and hell, the story revolves around the function of the two. Light reveals, darkness conceals. As such, evil in the series is defined mainly as wilful ignorance. Everything else comes as a result that.

To Bellos, the worst thing Hunter could have done was ask questions, and it’s not because Bellos is scared of what he might find. Bellos isn’t ashamed of his actions at all. Bellos just despises the idea of critical thinking.

Notice how empty Bellos' eyes are. Everyone else has that bit of light, but he is hollow. Dead and unmoving. A man whose view of the world hasn't changed in fifty years.

This leads back to what I keep saying about Bellos and his evil in that it is self-sabotaging. Bellos could have kept Hunter as a loyal advisor. He could have turned around and said “no, this was because of Wild Magic. They were all killed in battle.” He had established trust with Hunter. But the simple act of asking questions was all it took.

Bellos isn’t clever, he’s petty. That’s an incredibly important part of hit characterisation, and it carries over to what we will continue to learn about him later on in the series.

"I'll do anything to save humanity from evil."

This is why defining good and evil is important. Because otherwise you end up with stuff like this. Bellos defines evil as "not like Bellos", which means that any act of interiority amongst his tools is a questioning his motives. It means that curiosity and change are evil.

The Owl House as a series fundamentally disagrees with this premise. That's important to understand. Showing a worldview doesn't mean you agree with it, especially when the entire purpose of your story is proving that worldview to be utter bollocks.

Regardless of specific details, the discovery that you are expendable is not one that people are prone to take well. I think a lot of what sells Hunter as a character is Zeno Robinson’s masterclass in acting, and once again, that is on display here. Hunter doesn’t scream, he doesn’t cry, he doesn’t get angry or in denial. He goes through too many emotions at once and hyperventilates. That’s affecting writing, and its impeccably well-acted.

The episode ends on a cliffhanger. The question of what to do next. What can Luz do with the information that she helped Bellos become the emperor? What can Hunter do now that his view of himself has changed?

Bellos places immense significance on a human using his name, because he likes the sound of it. But how is Luz any different sounding than any of the Witches. Hunter and Amity have closer accents to Bellos than Luz. Could it be that Bellos' bigotry is founded in absolute nonsense and is working backwards to justify itself rather than accepting all the evidence in the world that it is wrong? Could it be that bigotry itself is inherently dumb as all hell?

The two reveals hurt the characters because they undercut their entire worldviews. Luz believed that she was special, and yet she was duped just as easily as everyone else, and Hunter…

I started this post with a thing about deceptive techniques, specifically obfuscation. Hunter believed that he was in the right because the actuality of what he was doing was hidden from him. If you look closely at previous episodes, Hunter has even gone out seeking materials, notably the Selkidomus scales, to make another Grimwalker. He could have been let go at any time, but he believed he was safe because he wasn’t told about his purpose.

He also had his trust manipulated. Bellos gave Hunter a reason to believe him. The Titan had decreed that Bellos was smart, therefore he must be trustworthy, and yet that wasn’t the case.

So now, Hunter doesn’t feel safe with the Emperor, and he doesn’t fully trust Luz and Eda yet because of course he doesn’t. That leaves only one place he has found where people are willing to show him kindness.

Final Thoughts

I’m not going to argue that Hollow Mind isn’t one of The Owl House’s best episodes after devoting nearly 4000 words to explaining one element within. I barely referenced Luz and Eda’s development, or the fact that the hooded figures are so obviously Raine, Darius, and Eberwolf.

However, I want to dwell on one of King’s lines from earlier on in the episode.

“No one wants to think they've wasted their life following the wrong person. You just gotta find something big to change their minds.”

The sunk cost fallacy is one of the most influential out there. It says that if you’ve walked down a path for a long time, it’s easier to keep following it and brave the consequences than to go back and try again.

But choice isn’t always an option. Sometimes the path ahead of you stops, and you have to go back, start from scratch, and forge something new.

Next week, a light hearted episode. Them’s the Brakes, Kid, an episode I definitely remembered existing. Definitely didn’t forget an important episode of the series at all. Not me. Never. Stick around if that interests you.

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